SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: County recovering slowly but steadily six months after attack

Workers work in the San Bernardino County Environmental Health Services office as part of a $3 million renovation project on Friday, May 27, 2016 at the San Bernardino County Government Center in San Bernardino.

Dec. 2, 2015, profoundly changed the county and its response to critical incidents.

Peer support took on a whole new meaning after 13 county health inspectors and supervisors and one other person were fatally gunned down by Syed Rizwan Farook at the Inland Regional Center, and another 22 were wounded in the mass shooting.

Of the roughly 100 employees in the county Environmental Health Services Division, the number of those killed or wounded in the terrorist attack made up roughly 35 percent of the department’s workforce.

“I think we’re finally getting a little bit of stability,” said Corwin Porter, assistant director for the county Department of Public Health, which oversees the Environmental Health Services Division.

Six months after that day on which 14 people died and 22 others were wounded, a sense of normalcy has begun to return.

“Everything is still very fluid,” Porter said. “It’s never going to be normal again per se, but we’re getting back to that normal business approach.”

Crisis counseling services traditionally provided to police officers and sheriff’s deputies following critical incidents were expanded to include county employees traumatized by the tragedy. And a special “quiet room” was dedicated in the Department of Public Health building for employees experiencing “trigger events” rekindling memories of that horrific day.

More than 50 percent of the Environmental Health Services Division’s employees — 52 of 100 — are working, but not all are working full time, and the fluidity of the workforce has been challenging.

“We’ve had a lot of help through contract positions. About 27 people are on contract filling the void for employees not back to work,” Porter said. “That’s been the challenge — making sure the work gets done with all these moving pieces.”

About 25 percent of the county’s health inspectors were killed in the attack committed by Farook, himself a health inspector, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, in what the FBI declared the deadliest terrorist strike on U.S. soil since 9/11.

But things are looking up. About 20 new health inspectors hired in the last six months have completed training and are ready to be put to work, Porter said.

“As a result, we’re scaling back our mutual aid. We’re starting to stand up on our own again, which is really nice,” said Porter. “We still have a lot of help, but it’s positive. We’re moving in the right direction.”

Meanwhile, $3 million in renovations are underway at the Environmental Health Services Division, on the second floor of the county Government Center in Arrowhead Plaza. The office has been gutted, and when work is completed this summer it will in no way resemble how it looked prior to Dec. 2, county spokesman David Wert said.

Environmental Health employees have been temporarily relocated to county offices on Third Street, next to the Department of Public Health.

The goal, said Wert, is for the new office to not remind any returning employees of the IRC attack and the victims it claimed — anything that can spur a “trigger event.” Even something like a cracked light switch cover plate could trigger an undesired effect, he said.

Building security has also weighed heavily on the minds of employees since the attack. Last week the Board of Supervisors approved three-year contracts with two security companies, Irvine-based TRC Engineers Inc. and Los Angeles-based Guidepost Solutions LLC., to assess security at more than 500 owned or leased county buildings encompassing 12 million square feet.

The county has already taken steps to make county facilities more secure, including activating cardkey-only access to many offices during working hours and ramping up security where appropriate, Wert said.

“The emphasis will be on employee safety, and the highest priority will be on buildings where the public comes to do business with county employees,” Wert said.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in San Bernardino, opening the door for the county to receive money from the state to help cover the costs associated with the attack.

The county has incurred $20 million in costs associated with the shooting, according to county CEO Greg Devereaux, including emergency response, the temporary shuttering of the Environmental Health Services Division in the wake of the shooting, counseling services for traumatized employees, and the renovation of the Environmental Health Services Division, among other things.

But securing federal funding has been tricky, as the reimbursement process is geared toward large-scale natural disasters and not man-made disasters such as a terrorist attack. That means only about $8 million of the $20 million in costs incurred by the county appears to be eligible for reimbursement under current rules.

“We have become far more prepared to address man-made disasters in terms of preparedness, prevention and response, but that system is not nearly as well developed in terms of recovery, so most of our recovery funding and programs are still geared toward natural disasters,” Devereaux said in a telephone interview Friday.

In response, the county is sponsoring state legislation, Senate Bill 1385, sponsored by Sen. Connie M. Leyva, D-Chino, to address that gap. The proposed law would guarantee full reimbursement for local law enforcement agencies that responded to the Dec. 2 mass shooting.

“I believe that the county of San Bernardino — as well as other local and law enforcement agencies that responded to the horrific December 2nd attack — deserve to receive full reimbursement for eligible costs incurred as a result of their rapid and heroic actions,” Leyva said in an email. “The county and these agencies should not have to absorb millions of dollars in unreimbursed costs, as that would directly impact the high quality services that they provide to the people of San Bernardino.”

Devereaux said it is imperative that in a world where terrorist attacks and other man-made critical incidents are occurring more frequently, the state and federal government must implement funding programs tailored for such events.

Other funding sources the county is trying to tap include the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Victim Compensation and the state Office of Emergency Services, Devereaux said.

“There are some sources we’re still pursuing that may still come through,” he said, adding that the county may be eligible for between $5 million and $6 million from the state Office of Emergency Services.

“The impacts of Dec. 2 and trying to address those impacts is something that we deal with on a daily basis,” Devereaux said. “The county was already a work environment that was very busy and had a lot of demands. This is placed over the top of all of them — this additional layer of responsibility that we need to address.”

As the county moves forward, Devereaux said, it is committed to rising to the challenge former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani gave during his Jan. 4 visit to Ontario, when he was guest speaker at a special event at the Citizens Business Bank Arena honoring those killed in the Dec. 2 attack.

“We’re committed to the challenge that Mayor Giuliani gave to us to not let the terrorists defeat us,” said Devereaux. “And so we’re working on that and working with businesses and the investment community to make sure that’s what happens, that we come together as a community and we emerge stronger than before.”

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